


Most Ardently

by AgentBertbeer



Series: Merthurweek 2020 [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28262727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentBertbeer/pseuds/AgentBertbeer
Summary: Day 3: “You’re hurt. Please, just let me heal it.” + Hurt/Comfort~~~~~~Arthur gets hurt in a fight and Merlin needs to heal him.
Relationships: Gaius & Merlin (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Merthurweek 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2132166
Comments: 2
Kudos: 76
Collections: Merthur Week 2020





	Most Ardently

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! 
> 
> So little bit of a disclaimer, this is my first time writing hurt/comfort and though it isn't what I first envisioned I would do, I hope y'all still like it.

Merlin wasn’t paying attention anymore, his mind was in a daze. Arthur had just  _ seen _ him do magic, the dumb idiot had frozen midfight and now had an arrow stuck in his arm. 

Just a little bit of magic, to get a branch to fall on a bandit, that’s all it had been. Out of all the times Arthur could have found out Merlin had magic, and  _ this  _ was when he had chosen to pay attention. 

Merlin’s magic was pretty easy to control, but the overwhelming thoughts of,  _ Arthur knows I got magic, Arthur knows, Arthur Knows, bandits everywhere, ARTHUR KNOWS. _ Together with the uncontrolled clanging of swords… It was too much. His magic needed to go somewhere, anywhere but here. It came out like a blast. Felling down multiple bandits, and definitely not on purpose, the knights. 

_ Was that what a panic attack feels like?  _ Merlin wondered. He shook his head. No time to think about that now. He checked on the knights, they were conscious, just knocked out. The bandits were as well, but Merlin had no time to worry about them now. He got some rope and tied them to a tree. He also ordered a few crows not to let them escape. 

He woke up the knights. Leon was last. 

“Merlin? You have-?” 

“Yes, yes I do, I can’t explain it now. We need to get Arthur to Gaius.” He pointed to Arthur, who was still down and bleeding. 

That seemed to take Leon, as well as the other knights, out of their staggered state. 

* * *

“Get a bed ready!” Merlin yelled. He and Percival were carrying a limp Arthur into Gaius’s chambers. Blood was dripping down his chainmail and his face had gone pale. 

Gaius jumped up from a potion that he had been working on and took the blankets off the bed. They couldn’t let him lay down yet, with the arrow sticking out of his arm and all. 

“Sire, can you hear me?” He asked a dazed Arthur, who nodded slowly. 

“Good,” Gaius took a closer look at the arrow, it had a barbed head and could not be pulled back the way it had gone into his arm, it must have been fired with an extremely strong bow if it had gone through his chainmail like this. It had not hit the bone, thank the gods. “Sire, we will need to break the arrow by the arrowhead to remove it.” He told him. 

“Do what you must.” Arthur slurred. 

“Merlin, get bandages and cloths ready to stop the bleeding.”

“Yes, Gaius.” Merlin quickly said before getting it from the chest in the corner of the room. 

“You, strong lad,” Gaius motioned Percival over. “You need to break this arrow for me.” 

Merlin put the bandages aside and gave Arthur a stick to bite down on. “You don’t want to grind your teeth down to bits when they do this.”

Arthur took the stick, and Merlin had to look away, not because of the blood, but because of the lok Arthur gave him. It wasn’t full of hate, like he expected, but a mix between disappointment and betrayal. Somehow, that was even worse. 

Percival waited, for Merlin to step away, took the arrowhead and the shaft and broke it in two within seconds. 

Arthur screamed, even though it was mostly muffled through the stick, Merlin was sure it could have been heard through the entire castle. Gaius pulled the rest of the arrow out quickly with expertise, causing Arthur to scream again. The blood was now pouring out of the wound, even faster than before. 

“We need to get his chainmail off.” Gaius ordered. 

Merlin put the bandages aside and started helping. 

In swift movements, practised with ease after all those years. He took off the gardbraces, the breastplates, and his chainmail. He threw them on the floor. The wound looked worse than it probably was, but he would die if they didn’t stop the bleeding now. The problem was that Merlin and Gaius both knew that cloths would not help enough. 

Meanwhile Gaius had ordered Percival to leave and get some rest for himself. 

“I need to use my magic.” Merlin stated unmistakably after Percival had left the room. His face showed that he was not going to change his mind. 

Gaius had already gone through one of the cloths that he had pressed against the wound and started getting another one. 

“Merlin you can’t!” He hissed. 

“He already knows, Gaius!” He laughed. It wasn’t a good laugh, it was one where you know you’re going to lose and it doesn’t even matter anymore. Softly, he mumbled. “What’s there to lose?” 

What was there to lose? His life, as Uther was still on the throne. But also Arthur’s life, a life he could not live without. It was ironic. He, a warlock, had fallen not only in love with a prince, but a prince who had been raised from the day he was born, that people who used magic, did not deserve to live. 

“Merlin…” Gaius started, still trying to process what had just come out of Merlin’s mouth. “I can’t let you do this.” 

“I need to, Gaius! He needs to live! He needs to become king, he needs to stay alive, if only just for me.” He muttered the last part. 

“Fine.” 

Merlin knelt down by Arthur, so they could at least look each other in the eye. “Arthur, I need to stop the bleeding, the only way to do that, is with magic.” 

“No.” Arthur slowly tried to shake his head. “No.” 

“Arthur.” Merlin said, growing more frustrated by the minute. “By the old gods and the new, I need you to let me heal you! I kept you from dying so many times, I can’t let you die now.” 

“No.” Arthur slurred again, but he was growing weaker by the minute. 

“Godsdamnit, Arthur! You’re hurt. Please, just let me heal it.” 

It was almost as if Merlin was begging him now to heal him, but that couldn’t be, Merlin didn’t beg, he spoke his mind, ordered Arthur around as if  _ he _ was the prince, not Arthur. 

Wheels started turning in his head. All those times, he thought. All those adventures, that he had miraculously come out of alive, he had had Merlin by his side. All of those strange gushes of wind, that were somehow powerful enough to throw a full grown man off his feet… It had been Merlin all along. Merlin, a man, just a servant, that he had started to have feelings for. He would have laughed at the irony if it didn’t hurt so much. 

He also didn’t want to die yet. 

“Fine,” he grumbled. 

Merlin sighed from relief and Gaius took the cloth away that he had been holding against Arthur’s arm all this time. Merlin pressed his hands against the wound, one on each side, and started concentrating. For this spell to work the caster had to stay positive and think positive thoughts and happy memories. 

Merlin’s mind first went to Ealdor, to his mother and her warm embrace, the familiar smell of the house and the many trips they had taken together to the forest to collect mushrooms for the soup. 

Then, his mind went to Arthur. The first time they had met. The friendship that had been built along the way and the  _ feelings  _ that had come with it. The little jump his heart made whenever Arthur did that cranky growl and didn’t want to go out of bed. Or when Arthur gives him that smile and Merlin can’t help but smile back, or when he knows that he would give his life for him, even if Arthur would not do the same thing. The feeling that he gets every time he realizes that ohgodsdamnit, he really  _ loves  _ this idiot. His prat, his clotpole. 

The bleeding had stopped. And Arthur looked at him in a way that he hadn’t expected, he couldn’t figure out what it was. The betrayal and disappointment had gone away and it was replaced with something, but wh-

“I love you too.” Arthur said breathlessly.

“You-” Merlin stammered, “-you saw all that?”

“Yes. Yes!” Arthur smiled. “I love you and I can’t help it, you have bewitched me, body and soul.” 

“Well, I didn’t- I mean, er, I didn’t put a love spell on you, if that's what you-” Merlin stammered. 

“Merlin?”

“Yes?” 

“Kiss me.” 

And Merlin did, and it was everything he could have hoped for, and more.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> *Gaius, who is still in the room* "Hey so this is great but I'm still here" 
> 
> Does this even count as hurt/comfort? Idk  
> I hope you guys liked it! (initially, I was gonna write a part with this where the roles were reversed and Arthur had to help Merlin, but I ran out of time)


End file.
